Syzygy
by Ori1
Summary: They are meant to be together but sometimes building a life is hard.
1. Chapter 1

Syzygy

By Ori1

This is the first part of this series of one shots. It will cover Nick and Cassie's relationship and will be jumping all over time. I am rating it at M just to be on the safe side.

This one shows why Cassie was so pissed at Nick at the wedding.

While she tended to not see the future when she dreamed, Cassie did possess the ability to know when she was dreaming. She not know if it was it was related to her being a watcher since she had not polled others like her on their nocturnal habits. Who knew what she would discover and there were quite a few things that she was better off not knowing.

 But her mind was not occupied by thoughts of other watchers or lucid dreaming. No, her mind was full of thoughts about the next day's wedding. Kira, the Pusher who had

become one of her closest friends, was getting married and she had asked Cassie to be the maid of honor. So Cassie was back from Duke for the week for the happy occasion.

For once happiness blotted out all other thoughts. Hell, it had been three days since her last vision (and that had been about Nick buying cereal so that did not count. Though why was he buying FrankenBerry when he hated it?)

It was easy enough to drift off after her shower. Her hair, completely blonde for once, was pulled back and her alarm was set for six am. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

When the dream began it was simple enough; more emotional than visual. Happiness, laughter, evolving into heated kissing.

She trusted him and it was easy enough to let hi hold her hands down using his power. Easy enough to let him tease her, letting soft touches become harder. He felt so much better than her own touch or the one time she fooled around with a boy in her algebra class.

Kisses going lower and lower. His beard scratching delicate skin, an enjoyable torture.

 Groaning, begging. Please, Please, Please.

Still he remains completely in control.

 She wakes up panting, and desperately needing release.

 "Damn it."

This was the third dream of this nature in a month. Cassie knew that unless Nick suddenly grew a pair, her dreams would never come true.

Kira said that she should just take manners into her own hands (not the right phrase at this particular moment Cassie thought) and talk to him. But she couldn't. It had to be Nick's decision to go forward with their relationship. Her visions had been dictating so much of their relationship since they met. She wanted the decision to be his choice. It was the only way she could be sure.

I hope everyone enjoyed. I will be moving Push/Pull and Photograph to the Push section this weekend. I am going to back to re-edit them and fix some formatting issues.


	2. Chapter 2

Syzygy pt 2

by Ori1

This takes place the night after Kira's wedding. Cassie has had enough and decides to listen to the advice of everyone and force the issue with Nick.

I hope everyone enjoys this.

Cassie gave up on sleep at four am. Wandering through her mother's house (where she felt comfortable but it was never going to be home) she ended up in the kitchen. Deciding to munch she pulled out the box of Frankenberry cereal and started to eat a few pieces dry.   God this was never going to work. Nick was never going to make a move before she turned thirty. She understood why he had not done anything before now but she was not a normal nearly nineteen year old. Just like he was not a normal twenty-nine year old. They were never going to be normal.   She was basically sitting in the dark so she did not notice anything beside her till she knocked it over. Things scattered all over the floor.

"Shitfuckdammit." she said hoping that the noise did not wake up her mother. Better clean up before someone, probably her considering the way her luck had been going, tripped and killed themselves. She turned on the overhead light and looked at what she had knocked over.

 Scattered all over the floor looking like the fallen soldiers in an Office supply store battle were a multitude of every type of writing instrument known to man in every color. She was a compulsive pen buyer. There were also lipsticks, her compact, her cell phone, a pair of pliers.

This was the stuff in her purse. But that had been in her room, next to her bed. A habit from all those years running. How the hell.... wait Mom. Her mother must have put her purse on the table when Cassie, desperate to relax, had been taking a hot shower.

 "Message received, loud and clear." she started shoving everything that was her in the purse before grabbing her keys. She was going to go talk to Nick and she did not like what he had to say she would ram his head into the wall until she did.

The roads were still fairly empty so she made good time to his apartment. It was easy enough to get into his apartment. A Division agent really should have better security but that was a topic for later. She rang his doorbell. Once, twice and then two more times before knocking on the door. Hard.

It took him a few minutes before he opened the door. He better be alone or else she was shooting him with his own gun.

"Cassie?" Nick had been sleeping when the doorbell rang. He had opened the door without looking since it had been his experience that assassins usually did not try to wake the entire building before killing.

"I can't sleep." She said it like it explained everything. Maybe it did to.

"So you came over to make sure that I couldn't." She was not going to go away so he moved to the side to let her in. He locked the door behind him.

"No I came over to get some answers." She dumped her bag and the cardigan she had pulled on before leaving in the chair. "Do you love me Nick?"  "You know I do but I can't right now."  "Why not? You love me. I love you. What more do we need?"  "You are too young."  "No I am not. I have not been young in years. Also you are good enough for me and I want to be with you. I also know that neither of us will object to a long distance relationship while I finish up with school. I know my mind and my heart Nick and all I want is you. Anything else you want me to shoot down?"  "No. Just like that." 

"Just like that." She held out her hand. "Come on let's go to bed."  "Cass." Warning her that while he agreed with her they would be going slow.  "Just to sleep. Cross my heart."  "Fine but you make a move on me and I will tell Kira who really locked her and William in the training room."  "Scary words man." she teased as she pulled him into his bedroom. She had seen it before since she and Kira had taken his credit card and decorated the apartment one weekend when he was out of town. His bed showed that he had been having as much trouble sleeping as she had.

Slipping out of her shoes she climbed into bed and lay down on her side. He climbed in behind her and wrapped his arm around her.

"Get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning."  "Hmm." she said nearly asleep.

 "Good night Cass."


	3. Future

Syzygy part 3

by Ori1

Hello all. Sorry this took so long I caught a bug and while I was able to think about my stories, I was not able to write them. But this hopefully will be me getting on track. This is just a short vignette taking place the morning after Cassie talks with Nick. It will probably be the last chronological segment of Syzygy since I will now be jumping through the timeline like a malfunctioning TARDIS.

Just to refresh I do not own but then you knew that.

FUTURE

The future was not just a noun to Cassie. It was something that she could change and occasionally something she feared. For so long the future was death and blood. It was destruction and pain. The future was something that left you alone.  Then she brought Nick into her mother's convoluted scheme to end Division. Kira joined them a few weeks later. It was the during that time she actually began to feel hope instead of a crushing fear and brassy fake confidence.

Once the old Division was crushed beneath her mother's heel she stopped living to change the future and lived for the now. She went to high school and was as normal a girl as she was going to get. Classes, flirting, dinner with her mom, shopping with Kira and Nick, always simply Nick.   At the time she thought she could not be happier. Now she knows better. Waking up in Nick's bed, things finally begin to come clear. Her future is working to help Division maintain balance in the world. Her future is Nick.

Her future is two blonde little girls who will have her gift and a dark haired little boy who knows how far to push his sister.

 And for Cassie the future can not get any better.


	4. Blue

Syzygy 4

by Ori1

This one is slightly longer and it jumps several years in the future. I promise longer stories after the next four or so snippets. These are short little reveals that will build up to a bigger picture.

Blue

She was wearing a blue dress when they got married.   It had been a spur of the moment thing. They had gone to Vegas to find Hook who had managed to get himself in trouble with the Vegas Mob and after it was all done (with all their appendages attached thank you very much) Cassie and Nick were left standing in the hotel lobby when a repentant Hook drove off into the sunset with a stripper named Candi, or Bambi, Cassie was still not sure after a night of fighting for their lives. Which had been sort of fun, sort of like when they first met. Only this time she would be the one having sex in the bathroom with Nick.

 "I give it a month." She says to Nick who laughs.

"Maybe there is someone for everyone." he states wrapping his arm around her. 

"That is sentimental. Nick Gant does not do sentimental." She was expecting him to reply with something flip.

 "Let's get married."

"What?" He had not hit his head that hard did he?

 "You are supposed to say yes." 

"I will when I know what is going on in your head." 

"I love you and you love me. Let's get married." She laughed.

"Just like that." 

"Just like that."

She reached out her hand to him. "Okay. Now?" 

"Well we are already dressed." He was wearing a black suit and she was wearing a dark blue cocktail dress. "Think of it as a story for the grandkids."

"Fine let me call Mom." Her mother would care more about the aforementioned grandchildren than the wedding but she warranted a heads up call.

 Before Cassie could make the call, her cell phone beep. It was a text message from her mother.

_You have my blessing. Get the DVD and the pictures please. Kira and William will meet you at the coordinates in an hour. Cassie fix you hair._

_Love Mom.   _

Attached to the message where coordinates to a wedding chapel. Which on one hand was incredibly annoying but on the other hand who knew how many wedding chapels there were in Vegas. Best to just run with.

"Just once I would like to surprise." Cassie said showing Nick the message.

 "I have given up on surprising either one of you. Let's go get married."


	5. Chapter 5

Syzygy

by Ori 1

Hello. This one takes place after Blue. Nothing truly naughty but one swear.

These are not fully developed but they are helping me get a better grasp on the characters.

Pink

It was the morning after their quickie marriage when Cassie woke up in their hotel room. Nick had suggested moving into the honeymoon suite. Cassie had just stripped off her dress to prove why that would be a waste of time.   She glanced at the clock, it was two in the afternoon. Five hours of sleep was decent. More than she had gotten for many years in fact. Nick was still asleep and she would let him sleep awhile longer. She really was too sore to move.

The sheets had gotten twisted so she reached down to cover herself up. Her hand barely touched her stomach as she pulled the sheet up but the contact was enough and she was immediately pulled into the vision.

 "_I am going to kill you Nick. No I am going to have Kira make you believe that you are Elvis for three weeks." "Sure baby whatever you say." "Do not agree with me ass." Pain ripping through her body. So much worse than her mother prepared her for. _

_Pushing, squeezing Nick's hand. Fear. Happiness. Pain. Then there she was. Yelling at the top of her lungs to let the world know that this was not the proper treatment of one such as she._

 Oh Holy Mother of God. How the hell was she supposed to tell Nick this? Yes he had joked about grandkids last night and the only way to get grandkids was to reproduce first but still they had never talked about kids. Why had they never talked about kids? Oh yes that was a normal courtship thing.  

 "Cass?"

 She startled, having been so intent on her vision that she had not even realized he was awake. She always knew when he woke up, a weird offshot of their connection.   

"Baby all you alright?"  

"Yeah. I am." she rubbed her stomach for luck and comfort and then pushed Nick back down on the mattress. He laid down without complaint considering she laid herself over him.

"You know how last night you were talking about grandkids?" she asked as she began to tell him the news that would change their lives.


	6. white

Syzygy

by Ori

This jumps back in time to when Nick, Cassie and Kira were on the road together. It just gives a brief glance into Cassie and colors.

White

 In the past several months Nick has discovered that Cassie just doesn't like colors, she needed them. As many and as multihued as possible.   At first he and Kira wrote it off as a weird teenager thing. But then they began to notice how she shied away from the color white constantly. Cups, t-shirts, even the paper she used had to be anything but white. If they gave her something that was pure white she would begin doodling on it until the white was barely noticeable with her drawings.

 It was not a big thing, kind of a hassle while on then run. Cassie had earned their tolerance. Still...why did she hate white?

Kira was the one who finally put the pieces together. White was the color of Division's holding cells. Pure white, unrelenting white. It surrounded you and blinded you, bouncing the lights kept on twenty-fours hours a day straight into your eyes. It would break you.   And Cassie who constantly kept an inner eye on her mother would always see white. When she looked into the future she would see the cells Division would keep them in if they failed.

 The day after Kira explained to Nick why Cassie hated white so much, Cassie woke up to find a brand new, unopened package of thirty sharpies in multiple colors beside her.


	7. Leopard

Syzygy

by Ori1

This one is premovie and shows Elaine Holmes, Cassie's mom. Who is a very interesting character whose backstory is beginning to haunt me.

Leopard

Elaine Holmes had not planned on buying anything from the mall for her daughter today. She had just gone into pick up some new clothes for herself. But as she wondered pass one of those trendy teen stores that her daughter was just beginning to shop at (How did Cassie go from a baby to eleven in the blink of an eye?) a display caught her eye.

Knowing there was a reason for everything Elaine wondered in and examined the merchandise. Most of it was completely run of the mill but a leopard print bag and a matching umbrella was what pulled her in. So she picked it up and caught a glimpse of the future.

 There was her little girl, looking only slightly older and light years wiser, holding this umbrella over a man who could only be Nick Gant.

_"I thought I told you to bring an umbrella." _

_"I though you said it was going to rain." _

_"Told you I got some things wrong."_

Apparently they had won that day's battle. The battle that would turn the tide of the war. So it was only appropriate that Cassie got a present to celebrate.

 If only she could do something about Cassie's hair. Oh well she would just have to see it as karmic revenge for the Farrah Fawcett do she, herself had sported as a teen.


	8. Messages

Syzygy

by Ori1

Notes: Do not own.

Pictures

 Cassie doesn't always draw pictures Nick soon discovered. Sometimes the visions would come and she would put her marker to paper and begin rapidly writing. It would be different each time, sometimes they are messages from her mother. _Love you baby stay strong. Burn this. Be safe._ Cassie always destroys those with tears running down her face. They are too dangerous, if Division knew mother and daughter communicated...it hurts too much for Nick to think about.

Sometimes it is the account number for a bank. Her mother planned for this, made sure Cassie would have enough money to survive. When they desperately need money Cassie will receive another vision.  And other times Cassie taps into other things. She will write long strands of code that neither she, Nick or Kira will understand. The strands of ones and zeros are daunting but she does not destroy them. They are a weapon. They will be the slingshot that kills Goliath. What Cassie does not know is who will be the David. She frequently wonders if she is the sacrificial lamb.

She has not had a vision in two days. It frightens her. For the past year her power had been growing, her accuracy rates climbing and now she was blind. What could it mean?

 Nick and Kira were worried, hovering over her. Finally she convinced them to leave. Go somewhere else just let her rest. It takes forever to convince them but finally they leave. When they do she almost regrets it. The cheap apartment they were renting was too quiet and too noisy at once. She wanted to hear Nick playing with the dice. She wanted Kira to be cooking in the small kitchenette trying to balance herself with each dish she makes.

She goes to lay down, all the pressure is giving her a headache. She places the pad of paper and her markers next to her out of habit but suddenly the vision hits. Images slamming into her brain worse than ever before. Normally it is disorienting, it takes her out of the world for a few seconds, this is pain. This makes her cry out as the vision happens.

Moments, maybe hours pass before she is able to resurface. When she comes to, when she remembers that she is Cassie, she is not the pain she saw, that is when she opens her eyes. And what she sees shocks her.

 Every single surface is covered in drawings. Her notebook is pushed to the edge abandoned when full. Her sheets received the same treatment.

 "We stopped you before you got to the walls." Nick said.  He was sitting in the chair beside the bed. There had not been a chair there when she laid down. Maybe that is why she did not notice him. Strange, some part of her mind noted she always noticed Nick. 

"What is this?"  

"You have been sleep drawing for the past two days Cass." he said. "You have covered every piece of paper we had in the house. Kira left twice to buy more notebooks." He did not leave. He couldn't leave her when she was like that. It said a lot about how much they had all changed in the past eighteen months that Kira did not ask him too.

 "I don't remember." She didn't. She looked at the notebook he was holding in his hands. It was one she did not recognize. The drawing she could see, some sort of circular design, looked way too together for it to be her work. Constant practice had improved her skill but this. 

 "You did not talk, you ate if we brought you something but all you did was draw." she had been drawing when they came back. At first he and Kira thought she had a vision, it usually took her a few minutes to start talking again afterwards but they quickly realized something different was going on. The past forty-eight hours were hell. The only person who could have helped them was unavailable and what could they tell to a Doctor, "This girl we are on the run with, who neither one of us is related to, she has these visions and she keeps having them."

Yeah that would have gone over really well. So they waited it out, praying to any deity that would bother to listen for her to be okay.

"I did this." Cassie mumbles.  

"Yeah I just told you that you did." She was talking but still out of it he thought.

"I never told you this but my mother once told me that the worst thing that could happen to a watcher was to have a vision and not be able to get it down. She says that drawing it helps us process it, handle it. The pain just is not in our minds in anymore. Without the medium we would go insane."  No she had not told him that before.

 "So what you are saying is that this was an attack?" Kira said from the doorway. She had heard Cassie's voice as soon as she entered the apartment after another office supply store run.

"Yeah." Cassie said. She seemed smaller than ever. Like the entire weight of Division was shrinking her. Which was an accurate enough description Nick supposed.

"We need to stop them." Cassie said. "I will not survive that again."  

"Easier said then done Mei-Mei." Kira responds.  

Cassie picked up one of the notebooks on her dresser and began to flip through it. "I think I know how."


	9. The end is the beginning is the end

Syzygy part 9-The end is the beginning is the end.

Once upon a time there was a girl with a pretty purple journal bought at Borders at a very reasonable price. And the girl loved her journal, writing quotes, story plans and story chapters in the journal. Then one day the girl in a haze of cold medicine, exhaustion and plain just not really paying attention placed the purple journal somewhere and then forgot where she put it. Lost in a sea of books, notebooks and magazines the journal languished until one day it was found quite by accident. The girl rejoiced because finally she could work on her stories and post. And all was well within the land.

Hi. I'm back after a much longer hiatus than planned. But I have been working on Push and I am actually working on a AU fic that I think everyone will enjoy. So if you review I will send you a teaser when I finish the chapter this weekend. My best friend who I saw the movie with is acting as beta and she is really enjoying it so far. So I hope all of you enjoy it as much as I am writing it. I also started another AU last night because I am insane but that one is miles before it is ready to be posted. I am also trying to write another chapter of Photograph because I want to finish that one up.

So I dedicate this to everyone who has told me in reviews that they liked this story. I have been really bad about responding but I promise to be better.

Also and I am pretty sure that you know that I don't own this. Very, very sad for all don't you think?

&*&*&*&*&*&&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&**&*&&*&&*&

It was over and they were alive.

Nick really had not expected that to happen. Yes, Cassie had foreseen that it would but really, watchers aside, how many times did David expect to take on Goliath and win?

Biblical story aside.

 But they had won. And the majority of their little rag tag group had survived. Hook was off somewhere. Pinky and the others too. Elaine was free and already rebuilding Division, that was a can of worms he was in no way or shape ready to open. And Cassie and Kira were still alive.

 Those were the two he cared about even if the actual relationship was hard to pin down. They were more than friends but to much lay between them to be siblings. Nevertheless they were a unit. And they had survived; they were battered, infinitely more broken and would always carry the scars of Division with them but they had won.

The first forty-eight hours passed in a blur of sleep and medical treatments. the next were spent in debriefing.

 Finally a week had passed and they were allowed to see each other again. Even though it was the last place they wanted to be they were in a Division office. Physically it was only the three of them but there were too many ghosts for them to feel comfortable there.

Nick looked at Cassie and Kira evaluating their wounds. Kira had been shot and Cassie had been roughed up physically and psychically but they had been treated by Stitches. Still they looked as worn out as he did.

 "You guys want to get out of here?" Cass asked.

 "Where do you want to go?" Though that really did not matter to him.

"Far, far away. Like Euro Disney far."

"What about your Mom?"  "She is going to be busy rebuilding Division and I need to be away from here. I can't deal with anything else right now. She gets that." Her mom had shown up in her room this morning with their passports and platinum credit cards in their names. Her mom understood her need to go just like she understood Elaine's need to stay and fight for Division. To Cassie and her friends Division was the monster that destroyed their lives but without something there training and policing the psychics there would be true chaos in the world. Right now it was Elaine's job to shape it up. Maybe later it would be Cassie and Nicks. Possibly.

It was right then and there that Nick knew that whatever happened to Cassie was a thousand times worse than what she said in the debrief he really was not supposed to have seen.

"Well what are we waiting for? K, you in?"  "I'm in. But we are not doing anything with the mouse. I will give you the world's largest ball of twine but it is me or the mouse."

"Well when given that choice." Nick teased grabbing Cassie's hand while Kira took the other one.

They walked out of Division together, ignoring the construction workers cleaning the debris and the people rebuilding the glass prison.

 They were finally free.


End file.
